2 Page Lit Response On The Biography of Kate Chopin

Siarra Williams
October 30, 2008
AP English III Period 11
2 Pages Literary Response: Biography of Kate Chopin

One of the greatest writers of the nineteenth century was Kate Chopin. Her stories had flair with that touch of reality that she shared so often with her audience. She wrote short stories and essays based on personal experiences and acquaintances. She made that connection with the audience that made them want to read more and become more educated of what’s going on in the world. She gave them information while still keeping their attention.
While reading some of Kate’s stories, you may have asked yourself is this real? Is this imaginative? Of course like most authors, the plots are based off of real life situations or experiences. So what real life experience has led Mrs. Chopin to write such a story as “The Story of An Hour?” You might consider the values and morals that society placed on marriages during that time period. For all those without previous knowledge of the 1800s, all women were treated as their husband’s property. They were without rights and opinions. So in “The Story of An Hour,” when Chopin writes “She said it over and over under her breath: ‘free, free, free!” Chopin is referring to the newfound independence that a widow feels after she is free of the oppression that her husband placed on her. Throughout a woman’s marriage she is her husband’s property and therefore she does whatever he gives her to do.
“The Story of An Hour” also refers to her father’s death. Chopin’s father was killed while riding a train that crossed a bridge and it collapsed under them. When Chopin writes about the husband in “The Story of An Hour,” he dies in a tragic train accident. She uses what she knows to write about a national issue such as the injustice between the male and female population. She throws in a personal experience as an example of how a woman may lose her husband and become a widow.
Kate Chopin was a great writer and like most authors, she uses personal experiences to get her point across to the reader. She also takes examples from her life because that is what she knows about more, therefore it’ll be easier to write based off of the simple details that she already knows.